Haunted House in Chester, VT Debunked?

Sometimes haunted houses in Vermont aren’t what they seem!

Have you ever watched the TV show “A Haunting” which used to be on the Discovery Channel?

It can be a pretty intense and scary show and they would have you believe that the stories are true. Well, that’s stretching the truth a bit…or quite a bit in most cases. I saw the episode called “Echoes of the Past” portraying paranormal events that supposedly occurred in a house located on School St in Chester, VT.

Some weeks later, I found myself driving through Chester and was curious to see the infamous haunted house on School St.

Below is a photo of the house as shown on “A Haunting“. There was no such home on School St in Chester, VT.

Fake Chester, VT House on “A Haunting”

Hmm. Maybe it was so haunted that the ghosts ran away with it? Anyway, with just a tad of disappointment, I drove off and forgot all about it.

That is, until I saw an episode of Ghost Hunters which I eventually gave up watching

It’s that show on the SyFy Channel, where after 5 years, they have yet to show one actual ghost. Mostly a lot of jabbering, “Hey dude, did you hear that?” sort of stuff and dramatic music so loud you can’t hear what they’re talking about anyway.

It seems that the Ghost Hunters team had checked it out first and other than hearing a couple odd noises, there was nothing to be found. To give them credit though, they DID show the actual house in Chester, which looked NOTHING like the version shown on A Haunting. Here is a photo below of the real house, that I also saw.

The real Chester, VT haunted(?) house

Ok, so big deal. The house didn’t look the same, so what?

Well, the thing that really made me chuckle was this comment from a web bulletin board posting:

Chester suspect admits to fraud: Rutland Herald Online
I don’t know whether the Sean Johnson of ghost fame and the Sean Johnson of fraud fame are one in the same, but the timing/dates appear to indicate it could be.
IMHO The Johnsons pulled an Amityville Horror, hoping to make money on the deal in order to get more money for their car dealership fiasco. They had two little children, bought an old fixer-upper; good bones for a made up ghost tale.

Suddenly makes sense doesn’t it?

Vermonter

Vermonter.com was started back in the mid 1990's as a Vermont resource guide. Since then it has evolved into more of a quirky historical and unusual chronicle of off beat Vermont folklore, myths and legends. It's easy to create a Vermont resource but damn hard to corral all the "good stuff" in one place. But hey, I'm having fun! This website is best enjoyed on a dark, rainy day with a cup of coffee and a loyal dog (or cat) asleep at your feet. So enjoy and have fun. "There be WEIRD stuff here!" Comment below, if you dare!